Should concealed weapons in public be legal?

Yes, I’m blogging on a Christian blog about why we shouldn’t have concealed weapons in public. If you want to get to the religious part of my thoughts, skip half-way down this blog post. But please keep in mind, as much as I plead my case passionately, I’m open to discussion on this topic. If you are pro-gun, I’m open to hearing your opinion. That being said, here’s my argument. It starts very close to home for me as I travel on Chicago’s transit system every day using the buses and trains. The very same buses and trains that will now allow guns on trains.

No person in their right mind would ever want guns to be legal on the Chicago’s public transit system.

I don’t understand how people can think that “the good guys” carrying a gun will help. Let’s think this scenario through. Let’s say I’m carrying a gun. I spot a guy carrying a gun on the same train as me, so I kinda flash mine to the other guy to say, “hey, i have a gun too. I’m a good guy, so don’t mess around on my train.” You know what would happen when the bad guy sees me, the good guy with a gun? He’ll be more likely to shoot me. My gun didn’t prevent him from shooting me. Instead this “bad” guy with the gun just got defensive and more likely to shoot me.

This whole Wild Wild West occurs. There’s no way that should ever happen on our trains.

One defense to having concealed weapons in public is to say, “how can we trust that someone else on the train isn’t packing a gun? How can we trust that this person isn’t crazy?”

If you say you can’t trust other people in society, then I ask you, how do you drive? How do you trust other people to not turn their steering wheel four inches to the left and steer oncoming into your lane? Society is built on trust. That’s what society is.

My hope is we start making decisions like a society. Not a group of fear.

We need to ask ourselves these questions:

Do you love risk of death?
Do you love fear of others?
Do you love not sacrificing?

I would dare say most people would want to answer “no” to all three of these questions. But hey, if you love the risk of death, then own a guy. Do you love fearing others, then yes, let’s have guns everywhere. Do you love not sacrificing for others? Then yeah, stick to that right of being armed, because that right only makes it more dangerous for everyone else.

Some stats

In households with guns, the homicide of a family member increases by three times. (source 1)

In households with guns, the suicide of a family member increases by five times. (source 1)

Among women who have been abused by an intimate partner (about 22% of all women), the risk of being killed increases five times when the partner owns a handgun. (source 2)

Everyone claims “oh, but I’m safe. I know how to use my gun. I educate my kids about our gun.” But the fact remains. The mere presence of that gun introduces a danger in your home. Most gun owners will respond with, “I am willing to take that risk. Government is about enabling people to make choices, even if it means that I am willing to make a choice that involves risk.”

At what point is the risk worth it? Does the government allow people to own hand grenades? No. We recognize the danger that a hand grenade possesses. Why don’t we recognize the danger that a gun possesses?

The religion angle

People like to think they are good. That they would never do anything bad with their gun. But we are all sinners. Will a good majority of people never do anything bad with their gun? Yes. Will many gun owners stay to their promise of never shooting someone? Yes. Will many gun owners continue to be good people? Yes.

But we don’t know who is who. Who is the “good” person? Who is the person that might have some problems later in life? How do you discern?

THAT is our main problem. We can’t discern. We simply can’t. Sure, there are some cases where psychologically it’s clear someone is not fit. But for the great majority of gun owners who shoot someone, we simply cannot look at someone and say, “no, you cannot own a gun.”

Besides, all humans are inherently evil. We don’t like to admit we are evil, but we are. We defy God every single day. We are all capable of great evil. When there is great tragedies, yes, we cry for the victims, but a good majority of people like to point at the evil-doer. Pointing at the person elevates ourselves. It makes us think we are better. But we are all rotten sinners to the core.

How do we solve this problem?

Ok, aside from our sin problem, because only Jesus Christ can forgive our sins. But what about this gun problem? One solution would be to allow free reign to all these people where we can’t discern their future. Just allow guns to all regular people. That’s where we stand now. And that’s where we have our problems now. The “bad” guys have the semi-automatic guns. We say that it hasn’t worked. We try to take the semi-automatic weapons away from the bad guys and they still have them.

But we can start to cut off the supply limit starting now. We can limit dangerous guns in the hands of everyone and in certain places. We take semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of everyone. Will that involve some sacrifice in the “good” people? Yes. But we since we can’t tell the “good” people from the “bad” people, we should limit dangerous guns in the hands of all people.

It’s called living in a society. We are one fabric. We need to care for the good people and the bad people. We are all connected. To say, “let’s only grant rights to certain people” doesn’t work. We can’t discern who should own a semi-automatic or not. We don’t know who will be dangerous in the future. Thus let’s make it so everybody cannot buy a semi-automatic gun.

If you can present a case why you should own your semi-automatic gun, then please let me know.

Post navigation

One thought on “Should concealed weapons in public be legal?”

No one should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon in public period. If you want to carry a firearm make sure that everybody can see it. If you have the right to carry one, everybody also has the right to know you have one on you so they can adjust their attitude and demeanor towards someone who carries firearms in public.